


Place Your Bet

by WinterSoldierfics (SupernaturalFlavoredLollipop)



Category: Avengers (Comics), Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Avengers - Freeform, Bucky Barnes Fluff, Cards, F/M, Hurricane, Poker, Strip Poker, Taxes, bucky barnes smut, flood - Freeform, hurrican, power out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupernaturalFlavoredLollipop/pseuds/WinterSoldierfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request: You're the person tax guru to Tony Stark and various other Avengers. You get stuck at the tower one evening during a flood, and you find yourself playing strip poker with the crew. And Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Place Your Bet

You were finally done. The last pages printed, you placed them all into a manila folder. A very large manila folder. You hefted it up into your arms and took the steps two at a time, up one floor and deposited it through the slot on the door to Pepper Pott’s office. The taxes for this quarter, for the retail income for Stark Industries, were done. They just needed signatures from Tony and Pepper, and to be mailed off. Of course, all of it wasn’t in the folder- most was in a computer file ready to be sent to the IRS. But what was necessary for them to look over was now settled onto the throw rug just inside Pepper’s door. **  
**

You shone your cellphone flashlight along the corridor. The power was out in most of New York right now. A huge tropical storm had come pretty far north, and outside, torrential rains were pounding down on the rooftops and streets and sidewalks of the city. No one was driving, subways were closed, and hospitals were on backup generators. You had been informed at about 3pm today that you were in fact stranded at the Tower. Pepper had given you the key to a guest room on the third floor, an efficiency apartment really. Every employee was stuck here. There had only been a skeleton crew today anyways because of the storm, but Stark Industries was a big account for you and you’d braved the rain to get here and try to get Tony’s affairs in order. He’d also rounded up most of the Avengers last week to get you on board to do their taxes this year as well,because, even though it wasn’t glamorous, there were two things in life that everyone including a superhero could count on, and those were death and taxes. And because of that, they could count on you. Y/N Y/L/N, CPA for the Avengers.

“Tony, finished with the taxes. Need you to sign them and return them to me in the morning. They’re in Pepper’s office.” You dashed off a text as you walked, passing the office that had been on loan to you the last few weeks while you had been wading through the mess the last accountant had made of Tony’s finances. The office was nice, but it was made nicer by the memory of a certain hunky, dark haired soldier who’d been spending a lot of time hanging out there, asking you questions you really didn’t know the answers to. Like, “How does a guy file taxes if he’s been dead for 70 years?” Or “If he hasn’t really been dead but hasn’t been making money, does he have to file back taxes? Can he get audited for 70 years? Would the IRS do that?” You smiled as you walked. Incessant questions had turned into a dinner date last week, which had turned into a three hour conversation in the borrowed Buick of Captain America about which was better, Terminator 1 or 2, and then a kiss that was much more chaste than you’d have liked on your doorstep. You looked around. You weren’t sure if Bucky knew you were staying at the tower this evening. Last you’d heard from him was three days ago, when he’d texted to tell you the date had been nice and that he was going out of town on a mission and would be back soon.

“You’re still working? Nonsense. We’re in the common room, fifth floor. Get your number-crunching ass down here.” Your phone lit up with a text response from Tony. You smirked. You’d known Tony a while; he’d been a friend of your much older brother at MIT, and had called you when his accountant had trashed his last tax filings. Because of this, he had gotten familiar with you very quickly, as Tony was wont to do, and kept insisting that “his casa was su casa”. You took the stairs down, down, down, but not far enough to get to your room, and entered the hallway of the fifth floor Dim light poured out from the doorway halfway down, and you could hear glasses clinking and laughter.

“God damn it, Natasha. How many hands have you won in a row?” You heard Sam shout in dismay as you rounded the corner.

“Only enough to make you angry, handsome.” Natasha replied. You entered the room and stopped on a dime. When Tony had said “we”, he had meant every single Avenger, and some of the staff. The common room was packed. In addition to Tony, there was Thor, Natasha, Steve, Wanda, Sam, Maria Hill, Bruce, Clint,T’Challa, Darcy Lewis, Jane, Sharon Carter, and a very tired looking Bucky. You hadn’t known he was back. Everyone sat around a large round table that had been dragged into the livingroom area. People were perched on couches, chairs, sofa arms, ottomans; Sam was sitting on an end table. A bowl of popcorn sat in the middle next to a deck of cards, and everyone had bottles of beer in front of them. Large stacks of poker chips were strewn about, and candles and lanterns were all over the room to combat the darkness.

“Oh look it’s the CPA of my dreams.” Tony quipped, seeing you standing in the entrance. “What, you act like you’ve never seen a bunch of drunk superheroes playing poker before.”

“It is a new experience.” You replied, taking it all in. You accepted the beer Tony handed you, noticing the obvious lack of alcoholic beverage in front of him.

“I’m on call. In case anyone gets swept out into the Hudson or something in the rain.” Tony held up a bottle of Pepsi, clicking it with your Stella Artois. “Don’t want to drink and drive.”

“Isn’t everyone on call?” You asked.

“No. Not much anyone else can do in the rain besides drown. None of them can fly.” Tony shrugged. “Except Thor. I guess he could be on call.”

“I don’t fly. The Hammer flies. I follow.” Thor pointed out.

“Okay, so just me on call then.” Tony smirked. “Everyone else gets the night off. You want to join us? Twenty dollar buy in, but I won like half already, I’ll give you some chips.”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to let you know that-”

“The taxes are done yeah yeah yeah. Have you been working this whole time?” TOny raised his brows.

You nodded.

“No. Sit down. It’s like ten pm and you were supposed to be off of work at five.” Tony said, and Wanda and Darcy parted ways and made room for you to sit. Steve slid some of Tony’s chips over towards you.

“I’d give you some of mine, but apparently I’m terrible at poker.” Bucky smiled at you.

“You’ve always been terrible at poker.” Steve reminded him.

“That’s something I was blissfully ignorant about, thank you Steve.” Bucky replied, drinking from a beer that you knew didn’t do a damned thing for him.

T’Challa dealt the next hand, and then Wanda, and then you. After a while, it became very clear that the only real game was between Natasha, Tony, and yourself. You won five hands in a row, and then noticed Clint peering at you quizzically. He looked from you, to Natasha, to Tony.

“Y/N, are you fucking counting cards?” Clint asked you pointedly.

“Um…” You gulped. You hadn’t realized you were doing it, but you had, in fact, been counting cards. “Tony’s doing it, too.”

“I am most definitely not counting cards.”

“I can see you doing the math in your head.” You rolled your eyes. “Natasha is at least sneaky enough to not be obvious about it.”

Natasha slapped her cards on the table. “Women stick together.” She hissed at you.

“We’ve been had, Natasha.” You whispered back theatrically.

“I should have known better than to ask the accountant to play poker. Of course she counts cards!” Tony opened another Pepsi and tossed his cards at the table.

“I didn’t mean to. I figured everyone counted cards!”

“Not everyone is that good at math!” Wanda responded.

“Either way, I’m getting called right now to go get a bus from a flooded Times Square, so I got to go.” Tony said, rounding up his chips. “I’ll cash these in tomorrow.”

“Tony, you’re taking almost all of the chips.” Steve pointed out. “What are we supposed to use to play?”

Tony wiggled his brows, looked around the room, and grinned. “Guess you’ll have to find something more inventive to use as collateral, Cap.” With that, he shoved all of his chips into an empty beer box, and left.

“He is such a dick.” Bucky frowned after him.

“So are we actually gonna play strip poker?” Sam raised his brows at all of you.

“I’m out.” Clint got up. “Sorry guys, I’m married.” He pretended to tip an invisible hat to everyone, and made his way down the hall.

“What is this strip poker you speak of?” THor inquired to Jane.

“It’s… well, it’s regular poker, but if you have the most loser of the losing hands, you have to take a piece of clothing off.” Jane explained.

Thor thought about this, then got a gleam in his eye. “Ah, it’s just like a game we used to play in Asgard. With my men and the shield maidens and… never mind that. It was a long time ago.” He nodded at Jane and gave her an innocent smile.

“I’m sure it was.” She rolled her eyes.

“I think I need to be drunk to play strip poker, and since that isn’t possible…” Steve shrugged.

“Sit down, friend.” Thor pulled a flask from his hipster boot. “Asgardian liquor.” He handed the flask to Steve. “It should work for you and Bucky. Just go easy on it. It’s very expensive and difficult to procure.”

“Thor, man, they haven’t been drunk since 1945. Not even tipsy.” Sam pointed out.

“Not even a little bit?” Thor was wide eyed. Steve and Bucky shook their heads. Thor looked stricken. “My brothers, drink! Make haste! That will not do!”

Steve and Bucky passed the flask back and forth. You watched as they loosened up a bit.

“What do you say, Steve. You ready to lose your ass and have to take your clothes off in front of a bunch of ladies?” Natasha waggled her eyebrows at her friend.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you Natasha.” Steve grinned.

“Oh please. I’ve seen it already.” She gestured around. “They haven’t.”

“But Steve is really good at strip poker.” Bucky blurted out.

Everyone looked at him.

“Born of the necessity to hide when I was a weakling.” Steve lamented.

“I’m sure you were still cute as a weakling, Steve.” Sharon put a hand on his arm.

“Oh, barf.” Darcy lobbed a handful of popcorn at them. Everyone knew those two liked each other, and had since Sharon had pretended to be a nurse living next door to Steve. They quickly pulled their eyes away from one another.

“Is it even proper?” Steve asked.

“No, Steve, it’s not! But live a little!” Wanda threw her hands in the air.

“It’s not like he’s never done this before, guys. He’s just weird about it because he likes Sharon.” Bucky took another drink from the flask.

“Thanks, drunk.” Steve snatched the bottle away, peering at it, and then shrugging and taking a sip. “At least this stuff works. Thanks, Thor. Okay, where are the cards? Let’s play.”

* * *

Bucky had been right. Steve was good at strp poker. It had been decided that we would reshuffle all of the cards every hand so that no one could cheat and count them, but Steve was really good at keeping his clothes on in this game. You were sad to admit, because even though you had a thing for Bucky, getting a glimpse of Captain America in his underwear wouldn’t be terrible. You wondered if they had stars and stripes on them. You looked at the bottles in front of you, lined in a row. No, you didn’t wonder about his undies. The four beers you had downed wondered.

You looked around the table. Thor was down to his jeans and one sock. Darcy was in a tee shirt and underwear, Jane had on her bra and panties and knee socks, Natasha was doing pretty well and had been wearing lots of jewelry and still had on her pants, boots, and bra. Steve was barefoot and in jeans and an undershirt, Sam was in an undershirt and boxers. Bruce was terrible at cards and was down to his boxers. He was out now; it was a rule that no one was getting full on naked. Wanda and T’Challa were both in jeans; he had no shirt which was nice to look at, and she had on her sport bra. And then there was Bucky.

You didn’t know if anyone knew you two had gone on a date, but you were pretty sure everyone now knew you had the hots for him. When he’d lost that first hand, he’d given you a tipsy, lopsided grin and pulled his shirt off over his head, messing up his hair and showing off chiseled abs and a chest to die for. You’d let out a little sigh that absolutely everyone had heard, and then proceeded to turn three shades of red and choke on a gulp of beer. Darcy had slapped you on the back.

“Honey, you only said what the rest of us were thinking.” Darcy said as you stopped coughing.

“Way to be discreet, D'arcy.” Jane rolled her eyes.

“If we’re all thinking it, it doesn’t matter if I say it.” Darcy pointed out. “Besides, you already took the blonde beefcake and claimed him as your own. We gotta have something else to look at.” Darcy looked around the room at all of the men. “Or several somethings, but Bucky is shit at poker and he’s the first to strip down. Y/N here was just voicing her approval.”

“Jesus, Darcy.” You groaned.

“Bet you voiced that approval the other night.” Wanda quipped.

“Oh my god.” You put your face in your hands.

“I’m just kidding!” Wanda smiled. “Oh come on! I’m kidding!”

“I think she thinks you’re hot or something, Bucky.” T’Challa pointed out with a smirk.

“For the love of God!” You started laughing, turning more and more red. They weren’t going to let up. Every time Bucky had to remove an article of clothing, someone would point it out to you, or ask what your opinion on it was. It was getting hilariously ridiculous. Finally, Bucky lost the final hand. He looked around the room and stood up.

“Fuck it.” He said, pushing his jeans down, revealing black boxer briefs. He stepped out of the jeans, leaving them on the floor. He walked over to your chair, took your hand, pulled you up. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” You asked. You looked down at the pile of clothes on the floor. Your shirt, socks, boots, tights, and jacket were discarded.

“My room?” It was half a statement, half a question.

“Oooooooooooh.” Everyone chimed in.

“Can it!” Bucky glared at them. THey all abruptly stopped, and he turned back to you. “Care to join me?”

You nodded, and let him lead you out of the room.

“Get some, Y/N!” You heard Darcy shout after you.

On the way down the hall, you passed Tony lumbering by in his Iron Man suit. “Where are you going?” He asked, then took in your state of undress. “You know what, don’t answer that.” Bucky continued down the hall, and into the stairwell since the elevators were broken.

As soon as you entered the stairwell, you were pushed up against the wall in the pitch black, his pips hot on your lips, his hands tangled in your hair. This was much better than the peck on the lips from the other night.

“You didn’t let me know you were back.” You whispered to him, pulling back for a second, then going in breathlessly for another kiss.

“You really want to discuss that now?” He asked, his hands travelling down your back. “I sent you a text, maybe it didn’t go through? The storm?” He bit your neck lightly, and chills ran down your spine.

“Maybe.” You clawed at his shoulder. He lifted you up, perching you on the stair railing. You wrapped your legs around his waist. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too.” He breathed into your ear. He growled as you nipped at his earlobe. “You want to keep doing this in the stairwell where we might get caught, or you want to go to my room?”

“Your room.” You replied. “Wait, how drunk are you?”

“Honey, that Asgardian shit isn’t as good as Thor says it is, and there wasn’t enough in that little flask to get me and Steve drunk. I’m tipsy at best.” He pulled back. “How drunk are you? Four beers in two hours?”

“I’m tipsy but not drunk.”

“You’re sure? Because I’m fine with, you know, waiting.”

“Scout’s honor. I’m good. I don’t drink to get hammered.” You smiled. “Get back here and kiss me.” He found your face in the dark, merging his mouth with yours, bracing his arms against the wall and leaning in to you. It was a rough kiss. Then he tore himself away, leading you the rest of the way downstairs. He unlocked the door. Everything still shrouded in blackness from the power outage, you tumbled into this rooms, made your way down the short hall, and fell into a tangle onto his bed. He fumbled with the remaining clothing that you had on, and you made quick work of his, and soon you were both undressed and caught up in one another until the early hours of the morning.

When you awoke the next day, the city was clear and new and shiny outside the window. And when Bucky opened his door to chivalrously go collect all of your clothes from the common room, he found everything in a pile in the hallway. So he just came back to bed and crawled in beside you. Just as you were about to drift off to sleep, your phone beeped. You looked at it. It was a text from Bucky.

“Hey, I’m back. Tony says you’re staying at the tower?”

“See darlin. I told you I sent one.” He grinned, threw his arm around you, and fell back asleep.


End file.
